Lost Letters
by The Tesseract Seraph
Summary: Even among the grand and sweeping saga, there are tinier stories that weave the world together. Drabble collection. 07.15.06: New drabble, Gold.
1. Red

**Red**  
Red.  
  
The ruddy dawn, the firstborn, the dragon hatching from the egg of the world. See how he spreads his carmine wings to the edges of the world; see his ambition and his capacity for rage, as swift as the break of day, as deep and unquenchable as the stellar void. Feel the heat of his breath, his pride; he is the eldest brother, nobility by dint of his birthright.  
  
He is the blood, the life that flows through his brothers. He is brilliance, the sanguine splotch of paint across the autumn sky. He is heat and light and fire, warmth and daybreak and all the beauty of the world, caught up in a single stellar flame. This is the essence of the flame that casts the shadows on the walls of the cave. This is the light, the life, the blood.  
  
This is the life's blood, betrayer and betrayed, spattered on the ruddy stones. This is the rusting of the links that bound them together, his sins as scarlet and splashed out in a hundred hundred ruined lives. This is the dragon who wrapped his tail around a third of the stars, pulling them to earth until even the seas boiled away and everything perished. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, collapsed into one vermillion package.  
  
His hand will the multitudinous seas incarnadine, and make the green run red. 


	2. White

**White**  
White.  
  
The body drained of blood, purity, illusion. The first untainted snowfall of winter, bringing gentle death to the world. The ashes after the hottest fire, and the phoenix who makes them his nest. He is flame, but not unconquered or unmastered; he is pride, but tempered and overmastered by his older sibling, the fire and heat to his light and stillness. The middle brother, betwixt and between--without pride of place or pity to call his own.  
  
He is the illumination, the truth, the rage against what isn't fair, what's imbalanced. He is the lightbringer, reaching out beyond the bounds of wisdom to touch knowledge and realize what the multitudinous stars hold in their fiery hearts. This is the one who wants more than what he's been given, who is afraid and yet awed at his own immortality, the chance to seek what's really out there. This is the new world in the eyes and voice of a child.  
  
This is the sanies, the corrupted slaver, the pall of leprosy and corruption. This is the sand and ash left after the destruction of a once-living world. This is the wolf who lurks in the shadows, rabid and half-mad with his visions, trapped in his own illusions and the light that only he can see. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, cradling the whole world in his silvery claws and singing along with a choir that drives the world to madness.  
  
Though your sins be as scarlet, he will wash them white as snow. 


	3. Black

**Black**  
Black.  
  
The beginning, the void from which all things spawned. He is the inky darkness, the ebon, untainted by the pinprick lights of stars. A quiet dark cat, perched on the windowsill and purring in contentment at all the secrets he holds. He is the peace, the stillness, the mediator when his brothers find themselves too similar to get along. The littlest brother, the charming favorite child, always trying to soothe his argumentative siblings back to the unruffled peace of the lake of darkness.  
  
He is gentleness, the diplomat, the calm and level head. He is the quiet voice soothing both his lighter brothers back to peace once more, speaking to them of their similarities and their love for each other. He is the silken cord that weaves between them; holding them together even as he separates them just slightly. He is the one still enough to listen to wisdom, to pass it on, to cool their tempers and show them a better way.  
  
This is the sacrifice, his life waning as his blood darkens and cools. This is the one who was destroyed, only to find life anew as an anchor, a well of darkness and strength for the brother who very nearly found himself alone. He is the onyx pall, the final kiss of night that steals away earthly cares to let them sleep in sweetest peace. He is poison and sweetness in one package, robbing you of care, robbing you of will. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, speaking light out of the darkness and returning day to night with the velvet of his voice.  
  
He is the one who knows that it's always blackest before dawn. 


	4. Morning Person

**Morning Person**  
The alarm peeps only once before dawn. He's the only one that wakes up, rolling over to peer with one violet eye at the digital clockface. Then he's out of bed, switching bedclothes for a uniform in his haphazard but quiet stumble to the bathroom.  
  
He brushes his teeth, washes his face, runs his hands through his hair in a lick and a promise for a better brushing later. Then it's outside, gasping as the cool air hits his wet skin. His breath puffs in the pre-dawn gloom as he scrambles up onto the roof, settling himself facing east to wait.  
  
For just a moment, he feels completely at peace, in unspoken and wordless communion with the world around him. It's not something he'll ever be able to explain, but it still drives him every morning to get up before the sun rises.  
  
Years after the Miltian Conflict, Nigredo and Rubedo would always wonder why their waking dreams were no longer tinted with the colors of dawn. 


	5. High Noon

**High Noon**  
During the summer months, it often got so hot on the proving grounds they had to call a break at midday and let the children go inside, for fear of heatstroke. These were his favorite days of all, when he could sit out on the blacktop baking in the noonday sun, letting it seep into his bones and erase any memory he had of the cold.  
  
He often stole glances at the sun in that time, even if the glaring brightness of it hurt his eyes. And yet, there was something so captivating about that brilliant ball of fire that held his attention, even as its warmth permeated every part of his being. It felt like being home--really home, not the false-seeming "home" the barracks were. Someday, he swore to himself on those afternoons, I'll live in that warmth forever. I'll be as bright as that sun.  
  
In fourteen years, Albedo would deliberately keep the Song of Nephilim at a glacial chill, to erase his own borrowed memories of that noonday warmth. 


	6. Twelfth Hour

**Twelfth Hour**  
The midnight hours are his time--when everything has quieted down, and everyone is peacefully asleep to wile away the long hours until morning. Only when he's sure they're all dreaming in the barracks does he slip out of his bed, padding on bare feet through the darkened halls. He's done it so many times that he can find his way in the dark by feel, without the lights on--though the first year or so was filled with barked shins and stifled whimpering in the shadows.  
  
The door is always the most dangerous part. He has to be careful to take one of the few swinging ones, avoiding anything he'd need a passcode for. It takes aching gentleness to push it open without making a sound, but then he's free in the garden, the cobbles cool beneath his feet.  
  
Sometimes he stretches out on one of the benches, folding his hands underneath his head and staring up at the starry sky. The wind, kissed with the scent of jasmine, or fallen leaves, or winter's chill, whispers promises in his ears as it runs its fingers through his hair. And even if he can't sleep most of the time, he can still snatch a little peaceful rest in those midnight hours, staring up at the stars and listening to the wind.  
  
Later on, Rubedo would never quite understand why Gaignun was so insistent about having a garden within walking distance of their home, but he didn't have a reason to argue, and so they did. 


	7. Little Kid at Christmas

**Little Kid at Christmas**  
It's not so bad, being a kid.  
  
Sure, a lot of the compensation sucks. Nobody trusts me within thirty feet of anyone's vehicle, except maybe my AGWS. And even then they keep making those damn car-seat jokes. Women, hah. Don't make me laugh--most of them don't even look down far enough to notice me, let alone think about me as anything but cute. And I can't see over most counters, and I've gotta get up on a chair to look Gaignun in the eyes when he starts talking down to me. People who don't know me won't sell me guns, and they're always going on about pinching my cheeks and calling me the cutest little thing they've ever seen.  
  
Okay, so there are a lot of downsides. But it's not so bad.  
  
Like, I can't meet a woman eye to eye, but I sure can meet her eye to breast, and she can't complain about me staring because hey, I'm just a kid! People never expect me to be packing heat either, and boy, you should see the looks on their faces when I am. And people still give me presents for my birthdays, even if most of them don't think about the fact that I should be growing up after so many of them. And nobody ever tells a little kid to just grow up if they catch him crying.  
  
And nobody ever asks about the nightmares. And I'm not old enough for Miltia, so they never ask about that, either. Twelve-year-olds can't be traitors, after all. Nobody knows a kid who's killed his entire family.  
  
Except, you know, me. Funny thing is that even Gaignun doesn't think about that too much. It's easier for him to pretend I'm his son that way. And that's funnier.  
  
There's other things that people don't question about kids. Most of them never get too mad at me when I show up places I'm "not supposed" to be. None of them yell at me too much if I screw up. And, hey, I screw up a lot, so that's a big plus right there.  
  
No one ever asks why I'm the first person up on Christmas day, either. Nobody ever wonders why I'm always the first person sitting underneath the tree and waiting for them to get around to the real good stuff, like the presents.  
  
Because there's nobody happier than a little kid at Christmas, right? 


	8. Shadow of His Wings

**Shadow of His Wings**  
One should not be doing this. But there is something one must say and there is nowhere else that one can say it, and so one must resort to this before one screams it aloud when one should not speak.  
  
One wishes to explain for the sake of one's sibling, the unworthy who all of us want to be. One wishes one's sister to understand what one and us were. One wishes one's sister to understand.  
  
One is numbered thirteen. One is called unlucky conventionally, but one's master loves one for her number. One's master loves one--does sister understand? That is why one follows, and stands in the shadow of his wings. One and us know that he loves us. He has promised us--he has promised us that he will make us like you. We see that he is true to us. One sees it for herself.  
  
Daddy could not be that way. Daddy saw only you. But master sees us and knows us and calls us by name, and even if he is cruel his laws are just, and we will follow him always.  
  
He loves one. He loves one more than anything, even if one should sin and make him sad. And if one does, he will wrap one in his wings and all hurting will cease. One is glad to be his songbird. One is proud to serve.  
  
One loves him, because he loves us. 


	9. Lullaby

**Author's Note:** Inspired by Assemblage 23's "Lullaby" and "Breath of Ghosts", and weiss kittyn's "Memorial Address". Warnings for: Spoilers for _Xenosaga II_, gore, character death.

* * *

"Lullaby"

__

_Return to me  
When slumber's fog has lifted  
Return to me  
Stronger than before_

Blood-stained fingers drew skittering senseless patterns on the Durandal's controls as Junior slithered to the floor. There was no one there to catch him; no Mary and Shelley, no Gaignun to come running to attend to his needs. Just the cold deckplates of his unbreakable sword, his prize, there when he needed them the least.  
  
He bent over coughing, tasting blood but producing none. His heart beat thready, irregular, dancing with fibrillation as somewhere else  
  
Albedo clutched a hand in his white hair, biting clean through his own tongue to keep from screaming and giving himself away to the monsters that lurked outside. The other hand clutched at his chest with strength enough to drive talons through cloth and skin and muscle, desperately seeking a shared pulse that was already ebbing.  
  
Rubedo, he begged silently, violet eyes wide now and unseeing as he stared past the fever-vision THINGS that waited for him out there. Rubedo, please come back and make them go away. Please come back and  
  
It was a white hallway, still and soundless. Gaignun knew he did not belong here. The slow trickle of crimson trailing from one corner of his mouth and staining his fingertips told him that much. This, he decided, is a fever-dream.  
  
This, he decided, is very bad. There was no reason for the senseless agony that pounded through his chest and temples, nor the heat that twisted through him. There was no reason for him to be so sick that he found himself as an outsider in his hallucinations.  
  
He stopped, trailed a finger along the wall to his left. A crimson smear stood out against the white, pointing the way down further into oblivion. He knew what awaited that way.  
  
He knew  
  
(crimson)  
  
Junior raised his head at a touch along his jaw, still coughing in the effort to get whatever thing obstructed his breathing out. His breath caught; he thought for a moment he'd be sick as the touch traversed his jaw, took him by the chin and forced his head up to stare into a pair of green eyes.  
  
"G--Gaignun?" he stammered. Another cough, wracking, spattered the illusion with a smear of his namesake red. "Gaignun! What the h-hell are you doing here? What's--"  
  
A strong hand took him by the shoulder, hauling him to his feet and supporting him on knees too weak to  
  
(ivory)  
  
They wouldn't go away he knew that much the hallucinations never left him alone not lightly and he's never been quite sure which of the monsters are the product of his broken mind and which of them are real and that's actually pretty damned funny now that he thinks of it and starts laughing which gives him away just as much as screaming would have and they're upon him for monsters always always ALWAYS turn on one of their own when they sense weakness it's just natural selection and he can't  
  
fight them off? But that's quite unnecessary, quite unnecessary, Albedo. He peered frightened and coughing through a hand splayed across his face, purple eyes bloodshot with fear and anxiety. There among them was something he recognized, a basilisk lording itself over the other monsters, with green, green eyes.  
  
"Nigredo?" he managed, voice hoarse and choked by stress, only to find fingers winding through his own, himself being pulled up to  
  
(crimson)  
  
stand. Strong arms folded around him, holding him stable as he coughed up his lifeblood into their embrace. "Gaignun," he said weakly. "Gaignun, what's going on?"  
  
Only silence met him. Hallucinations have no power to answer the questions we need answers to most. The worst part of terror is its senselessness, a thought that occurred to Junior just as he looked once more into his little brother's green eyes and saw  
  
(ivory)  
  
death waiting there for him. He wasn't afraid because after all isn't this what he had asked for for all these years? But he was defiant because not like THIS not like THIS this isn't what he wanted abandoned and alone in his far-flung wanderings incomplete and sobbing for breath and sick but he doesn't know how, doesn't realized this green-eyed specter is death not jealousy until he's staring it right in the face.  
  
He pulled away, though he wasn't strong enough to run. "No, not here--" was as far as he got before Death closed with him and placed its lips against his mouth, tasting his blood as it silenced his protests. The kiss  
  
(crimson)  
  
lasted for what seemed like an eternity. When it broke he understood just how senseless it all was, but didn't even have time to laugh about it, like his dark half might have. Gaignun simply placed a hand on either side of Junior's face and spoke two words: "I'm sorry."  
  
The boy was dead before he hit the deck.  
  
(ivory)  
  
The fall wasn't enough to still the mindless spasms he went into as the Executioner's telepathic poison hit his bloodstream. There was no profound nonsense in those last thirty seconds, no madman's observations on reality, no laughter, just a long, shrill scream for an older brother who would never hear him again.  
  
The Kirschwassers, alerted by the death cry, arrived within minutes--but he'd stopped twitching by then, beyond their feeble help.  
  
(ebony)  
  
It had taken something out of him to release his older brothers; already, their presences had fled beyond his ability to reach, down the white hallway marked by that crimson splash of an arrow: This way toward Eternity.  
  
It was his turn next.  
  
Nigredo turned his back to the Infinite, staring at the man who had started this senseless death. "I hope you're happy, Father," he said.  
  
In his office on the Kukai Foundation, Gaignun slumped over his desk, one hand knocking a dish of candies off of it. The glass rolled away, fetching up against the door with a thump and leaving its contents upset all over the carpet.  
  
Standing behind the Director's corpse, the blond-haired man clicked off an old-fashioned stopwatch.  
  
"Thirty seconds, Executioner. I made you well."


	10. Wine and Roses

**Wine and Roses**  
The Song made them drunken with their own insanity.

He was one of the last to lose his grip, caught in the maelstrom of a decaying psychic link. When Rubedo and Nigredo started shooting down the maddened survivors, he felt them die. Their screams left him bleeding from the mind.

Then the last vestiges of the link shattered utterly, and the Song came for him. High and sweet and achingly, horribly beautiful, it seduced him like the raw boy he was, turning his mind inside out with little concern for what it erased or perverted. It left him trembling and gasping and wet, naked and bleeding and in full possession of a truth that dug into his thoughts like splinters of broken glass. It showed him things that the others could not have understood, and he cried and thanked it for the privilege of the violation.

Seeing the world through the lens of the Song, he knew what he had to do next. In the driest, whitest stretch of pain's infinite desert, it had taken his sanity and given him a rose. 


	11. For You I Would Do Anything

**For You, I Would Do Anything**

Some nights, Junior woke up screaming from the nightmares that wouldn't let him be. Every time it happened, Gaignun died a little inside, guts in knots, heart hurting. He never felt so hopeless and helpless as when his older brother suffered under the burden of their memories of Miltia.

But they never spoke of it, and there was nothing Gaignun could do but stand outside, jealous, and watch, like a man staring through a thick pane of glass.

After all, Junior never screamed for Gaignun when the dreams woke him up, and nothing in Gaignun's power could bring Albedo back.


	12. Familiar Assassins

**Familiar Assassins**

The Director winced, raising a hand to his aching chest. His questing fingers came away stained with wet redness, blood-warm and sticky. He stumbled a step forward, his assailant's familiar, terrible giggle still ringing in his mental ears. Another stumbling step, and he grimaced; his employees finally noticed he'd been hit, and yelped in shock.

"Gaignun-sama!"

"Quick, somebody--the Director's been attacked!"

He waved them off; it was already far too late for him. He reached out mentally to his attacker:

_:Junior, I didn't get you the paintball gun so you could attack me in public. Cut it out.:_

_:Sorry:_


	13. Aureole

**Aureole**

Black was the drowning deep between the stars. Black the empty world beyond death, black the horizon over the Sea of Nothingness.

A mere particle of dust, a fleck of light in the cold night sky, he fell toward the black, caught in the gravity well of the infinite dark. He reached--reached--heedless of his own brilliance holding back the night--and ever, ever the Dark slipped through his clawed hands.

A luminant moth outshining the flame, he dances still with the black, begging to be burned.


	14. Blood

**Blood**

He finally decided the men had stopped testing him, when they strapped him to a table and bled him out.

He had thought that, once they were done demonstrating his arms could still grow back even with the growth plates obliterated, they had enough evidence to prove his regeneration. Then they took out his eyes--both of them, not just one--a brief cruelty, but a necessary one in their minds. Comparatively, the extensive testing they'd done to show that his body could reduce compound fractures without outside interference was a minor irritation.

It had been six months since that, the longest they had left him alone. He had even stopped flinching whenever one of the men in white coats stepped into the barracks, since they inevitably never came for him.

When at last they did, it was morning. His time. He had already been out of bed for an hour, watching the dawn--and then reading, waiting for the others to wake up. One of the men stepped in. He didn't look up, paging through a storybook on his Connection Gear.

"Unit 667." Then he looked up, feigning innocence as he shut off the Gear. The man didn't even bother to look at it, before grabbing him by the wrist and hustling him off to the labs. There, he was summarily stripped of his uniform and led to a table. He made only a token protest as they strapped him down; he knew what was coming, and fighting never made it easier.

The pain as they cut him open from groin to throat wasn't unexpected, either. They never used painkillers or sedatives, of course; it would impair the vital stress reactions his body underwent to repair damage at an accelerated rate. (Or so they said.) What happened next--was.

"Clamp that." A physician gestured over his stomach, where runnels of blood were already leaking from torn skin and damaged muscle. He wasn't paying attention; as always, he bit his tongue, let the tears flow, tried to make the pain simply pass through him. Screaming, like struggling, made it no easier.

He was shocked back to reality by the feel of one of his tormentors reaching around inside his cut-open belly, as if looking for something. Then another burning line of pain, and awareness seemed to bleed out of him. Then he tried to scream, but he had no voice. --And his consciousness _jumped_, reaching for his brothers and finding nothing but dead-headed men between him and them.

It went for the nearest target. There was a moment of double-vision, as he/his host looked down at the little white-haired boy on the table--how could such a small body hold that much blood?--pale from exsanguination, writhing with the terrible pain besetting him.

His host staggered from the sudden mental invasion, collapsed. "He jumped, the little bastard! Turn the dampeners on!" he heard, through two sets of ears.

Then his world collapsed back down to the empty black of a body fast bleeding to death, and he whimpered. He was dying--he didn't want to die--he knew he was going to die...

Over the course of minutes, the sense of emptiness began to fade. His vision cleared a little, the pain ebbing from searing to a simple dull roar. A rush of endorphins flooded his system as his body got the bleeding under control, transmuting pain to fleeting pleasure. He gulped and took a breath, unable to believe that he was alive, after all that.

Once they had made their data entries and dragged the body of their dead comrade out of the room, the men got around to unstrapping him. He was shivering, hollow-eyed, naked except for a second skin of his own drying blood. They gave him a towel and sent him roughly back to the barracks.

He didn't explain to Rubedo or Nigredo why he slept through sunrise the next three mornings.


	15. Can I Be Buried Here Among the Dead?

**Can I Be Buried Here Among the Dead?**

Frailty, he thinks as silver hair slips between his clawed fingers. Frailty, thy name is woman. Her neck and heart broke so easily but still, she let him kill her.

He sinks to his knees, bent double to press his forehead against the cold and solid decking. He can still see the corpses, hear the dying gasps, feel their pulses palpitate beneath his fingers like dying butterflies.

It is so bitter to him.

He throws his head back, laughing to the sky and the God only he believes in. "WHY!" he shrieks, and means: Why can't I be frail, too?


	16. Interdependence

**Interdependence**

Mon coeur,

I write to tell you of our incompletion. This will not end without both of us. You are mine every bit as much as I am yours, and no matter how far you run or how you try to hide me, that will not change. To your blood I am dust and ashes, to your fire I am water; you are the dragon and I the phoenix, I the Thanatos, I Death the destroyer of worlds; I white to your red.

This will not end without both of us. Do you see how vital it is that you stop running? Do you see how vital it is that you repent with your life? How precious? I have seen the truth in the heart of the girl, I have seen reality and the face of God. I know. Listen to me. Cease this running, for I am the wolf you cannot outrun, I the demon that will draw you to me and cause you to fall as the very stars from the heavens.

I cannot die without you there. You will not repent without my presence. You know as well as I do that we must both pay a blood price for our sins. This will not end without both of us.

Come to me, my love. For you, I will burn the length and breadth of sky.


	17. A Lovely Light

**A Lovely Light**

Rest was when dreams could find him; thus, he did not rest.

The daily maintenance of his fragile world took precedence over sleep. Work came looking for him even when he'd had enough of it; he took the new tasks on with a smile and shoved himself further and further into the realm of the waking. A body built to survive stress that would kill a human thrived as hours lengthened to days lengthened to weeks without sleep. He didn't hallucinate, much.

Sleep took him as a challenge; often took him in the middle of doing something, and he collapsed on spot, a hamstrung puppet.

Gaignun and Albedo had much to commiserate on when it came to sleep.


	18. Lotus

**Lotus**

"Do you see this?" he cried, shaking his hands to the sky. His wrists dripped blood from the stigmata there (that had always been there).

"Do you see this? Do you see these wounds? Do you want me to pretend everything is all right? Do you want me to pretend like I can forget every day I bleed?" The blood dribbled down his arms, wound around his elbows. He didn't usually bleed. He couldn't bleed out (he had experimented).

"Do you see this!" he cried to the heartless lotus that spread its petals among the stars. "Do you see? Do you see that I'm the only one left to bleed for all of us? Am I supposed to pretend that this is all right? Am I supposed to pretend that this pain will die?" (But of course it wouldn't.)

There was no answer from the sky. They did not see him down below. He was but a memory, a bad dream they wanted to forget. "I won't let you forget!" he swore. "I won't let you! You can't! You promised!" So he turned and burned the world down around him, and at long last they noticed the smoke and came to chase him away from the matches.

But at least they noticed, and as he ran back to his corner of the world, he smiled. He smiled as he collapsed there, weeping tears of blood, holding his head in his arms. "I'm all right," he sang to himself. "I'm all right because they remember. Everything's okay because they remember." And the blood ran down his wrists and turned his white hair the red of betrayal.


	19. South Into Madness

**South Into Madness**

This is simple. We've been trained for this. (i hate the men i hate their plans i hate their training) It shouldn't be hard. We've drilled and marched and fired and disassembled and reassembled and ran and performed until they're happy with us. Of course we could die, but that's the price of warfare. (i hate this i hate their indoctrination their assumption their lies)

This is simple. We'll march into the city and confront the foe where it's taken up residence. Our equipment is top-notch; it's just a matter of point and shoot. (i hate this i don't want to but there's no going back i am bred for this) The rest of it--we've been bred for this. (i am an anti-existence) All we need to do is stand close enough to it, to neutralize its wave existence, shut it down entirely. (it will do the same to us because destructive interference destroys both waves)

This is simple. I'm not afraid. (i'm scared out of my wits rubedo reassure me)

This is simple. There's no reason to fear. We're trained for this, our telepathic bond will keep us safe from the maddening effects of its Song. It can't drive us mad if we band together. (rubedo rubedo i feel you weakening stay strong please for me for us) We're stronger together like this than we ever could be apart. We are fearless. There is no reason to be afraid of what we've trained all our lives to face. (rubedo hold on please it's not that frightening i can still hear you please hold on

Rubedo?


	20. Creation Myth

**Creation Myth**

"Damn it!" The obscenity seems like a violation of the serenity of the beach of nothingness, but he's too upset to be bothered by that. His temper is as hot as his fiery red hair. "Now you've done it!"

"I admit I might have screwed up." The other's violet eyes sparkle with humor--everything is funny to him, and death won't change it. "This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen."

He fists his hands. "'Screwed up'. Yeah, I suppose the entire universe biting it is just a 'screw up' to you."

The other glances at him, smiling. "Of course it is. We've done this before--don't you remember? We'll have another chance."

Water washes up the beach, lapping at the toes of his sneakers. He looks away from the other (his other), raising a hand to his face and throttling his temper down. Now wasn't--would never be--the time to carry on their feud. Hell, everything they had to FIGHT FOR was gone, just like the rest of existence.

Cloth squeaks on cloth. His other puts a hand on his shoulder. He looks up, baring his teeth in a silent snarl--only to be surprised to see a certain sadness in those violet eyes. (That's not right.) "What?"

"Did I do wrong, my general?" It's been a little more than fourteen years since his other has called him that. It brings up painful memories of old loss and older love.

He swallows hard, and looks away. He'd looked into those eyes when betraying his other once, and he's not sure he can do it again. "...No, 'Bedo. I guess you didn't," he finally admits, with a sigh. "Though I hope you know how to fix this. I sure as hell don't and it seems right up your alley."

Amusement ripples between them. "Naturally. I'm sure you do, too, my other half. You just haven't been thinking about it." His other moves surprisingly fast, stepping toward him and drawing him into a breath-stealing embrace, chin on his shoulder and bright eyes closed. (They're the same height now, but they've always been identical in spirit, though of opposite polarity.) He makes a startled noise, embracing his other back--and suddenly remembering what it is they did to solve this little problem before.

"You can't--" he begins, but his other just laughs.

"And why not? I'm the phoenix of the family, after all." His other steps back again, placing both hands on his shoulders and looking him in the eyes. "I'll be with you. I've told you before I'll never leave you alone. I mean it."

He swallows hard and nods. "All right." The hoarseness of his own voice surprises him. There was never a time in the past when he would have shed tears for his other--not in recent memory--but death changes things. It always has.

"Ahh, my Rubedo," his other chides, shaking his head. There's a flash of steel in his other's hands, a knife. (Never mind how it got here, on this beach at the end of everything. This is the way it's supposed to be.) "My Rubedo. No reason to be a coward for my sake." And then his other acts, slicing his own throat and collapsing to the gray sand in a spray of white and red. All creation has to come from somewhere, after all. Nothing is truly ex nihilo.

His breath catches in his throat, and he drops to his knees to catch his falling other. But all he catches is white light, a few drops of blood, and a handful of white hair. Already, the phoenix has risen from the ashes, releasing all the power bound into him for the sake of new creationg.

He cups his hands around the scraps of blood and hair, bowing his head and closing his eyes. The sounds of the beach fade. When he opens his eyes again, there is nothing but void around him. No light. No sound. Nothing.

You remember the words, a silent presence prompts in the back of his mind. You remember.

He gets to his feet, holding out his hands and letting those white hairs fall from them.

"Let there be light."

There was light, and God wept.


	21. print

**print;**

At the one year mark, they were ready to test KOS-MOS's AI architecture.

The android herself wouldn't be ready to "wake up" for another year; her chassis wasn't anywhere near complete. But the skeletal program that would later animate the body was already in place, drowsing somnolently in Vector's motherframe.

Today was the do or die day. Shion pressed her palms together, breathing out, then placed her hands on the terminal and began typing. 'Good morning, KOS-MOS,' she wrote. 'How are you feeling?'

The AI waited a second, an eternity in computer time. At last, a reply scrolled across the screen: 'All functions operating normally.'

Shion smiled. 'Do you have anything you want to say?'

Another long wait, long enough that Shion's smile dimmed. Had she pushed too fast? Was the subjunctive question too much for the AI's logic subroutines? At last, though, an answer began to form--letter by letter, as if typed out by hand by a child practicing on a keyboard.

'Hello, world.'


	22. Pulse

**Pulse**

When you can feel the power pulsing through your veins, the sing and lure of eternity, you'd think that's all that would be on your mind. You'd think you were doing it all for the sake of becoming a god, taking in the knowledge and breathing out a breath spangled with stars and incandescent light.

You thought wrong, sings the pulse through your ears. You thought wrong, mutter the columns of data streaming out toward the stars. Every breath that puffs and condenses against the black of space, every thought that slips loose of its moorings on that lake of darkness, all angled toward one goal--

_Home! The way to home is open again--I'm going home!_

A million lightyears away, Junior crumpled, clutching at his chest. Every painful beat of his heart advertised the truth: _Home again! Home at last!_


	23. Taste

**Taste**

He could remember the smooth and winsome curves of her body and the way her flesh felt so smooth beneath his fingers. He could remember the sweet, wet taste of her on his tongue and the way she seemed to slip into every crevice of his body, filling the very depths of his need for her. He remembered the way she looked in the morning, sitting across the table from him at breakfast and glowing resplendent in the light of dawn. Even if she'd always been a cold bitch to the rest of the crew, Captain Matthews knew she was there for him.

No longer, though. All he had left was the bitter memories and the faintest taste of her on his lips. She--she was gone. His hand tightened on the edge of the Elsa's fridge door, digging in 'til his knuckles whitened. Anger bubbled in his throat, but it wouldn't bring her back. None of his anguished cries would, for she was gone.

"All right, ya morons! Who the hell drank my last Miltia Pale!"


	24. Gold

**Gold**  
Gold.

The warm light of spring, gilding dust motes as they drift toward heaven. The deceptive warmth of desert sands, sapping strength from your limbs even as it lulls you to sleep. She is the precious one, held closest to the heart of him who made her; she is the lonely guardian of an incomprehensible treasure. Brilliant and jarring as acid on the tongue, fast as an amber-scaled snake and just as quick to kill. The only sister, standing out like a dropped coin in a bed of precious stones.

Mother and daughter, the mysterious feminine. Her brothers don't know what to make of her; she frightens and confuses them, keeping to herself what they are better off not knowing. Unknown and all-knowing, she is the good soldier, the consummate spymaster, heading a female fifth column in a world built by men.

This is the missing piece, the one who disappeared in the struggle. She is the gap in the incomplete series, lost only to resurface at the worst possible time. Ruthless and intelligent, but loyal before all of that, she is the one who remembers the real reason they were made. The perfect standard, the mold the others should have been thrown from, the one with her name on yellowing pages moldering on a lost planet.

Silence is golden, as she well knows.


End file.
